[FRIAM] the Skeptical Meme

[Steven A Smith]

Glen -

I am inclined to agree with you, but am left somewhat empty-handed with:

    "because ALL rule sets are faulty!  Damnit."

my instincts are with you on this, yet in some kind of Godelian (not 
Gordian) knot I find myself:

    A) questioning the "rule" you just stated.

         and

    B) finding myself conjuring (fuzzy?) rules to replace the crisp ones
    I resent/resist!

Are Heuristics or Patterns also rules?   Can we suppress any desire/need 
to have formal rules and not just discover (or never notice) that we 
have an implicit rule set embedded in our intuition from our genetic and 
cultural origins, informed at best by personal experiences?

I'd like to imagine that we *can* transcend all rules 
(explicit/implicit, crisp/fuzzy, etc.) but am not quite sure what that 
would mean or why?

- Steve


On 8/16/17 11:46 AM, gⅼеɳ wrote:
> Nietzsche's complaining/rejoicing re: the loss of the Christian rule set isn't all that relevant, I don't think.  Those Trumpians complaining about "political correctness" aren't complaining about the lack of a rule set, because there exists a new rule set.  E.g. don't chant "Jews will not replace us" and expect to get away with it.  Similarly, we can't really apply Nietzsche's observation that deontology is faulty to authoritarians anywhere.
>
> No, the desperation and rage Marcus points to is about a perceived change to the rules, from one broken rule set to another (equally broken) rule set.  That's what makes it tricky for those of us who don't base our ethics on rules.  When a Trumpian points out flaws in the lefty's rule set, we consequentialists have to agree with them... yeah, their rule set is faulty.  They hear that part.  But then the Trumpian fails to hear the qualifier: "Because ALL rule sets are faulty! Damnit."
>
>
> On 08/16/2017 08:10 AM, Marcus Daniels wrote:
>> Yeah, it is probably nothing new that is happening nor a new interpretation.   Institutions of various kinds can give individuals a role to play and guidelines for conduct, but a highly interconnected population with a complex economy will stress these institutions and reveal their limitations.   Meanwhile, only exceptional and delusional individuals can really make a convincing case (esp. to themselves) about their unique value either coupled-to or uncoupled-from from institutions.   However, I fear the stakes are pretty high now -- the contagion of people going bonkers could be fast with social media.   A healthy society is one where individuals can mature to the point they can begin to doubt the meaning in their own anxiety (whether by themselves, with their shrink or their spiritual authority) and make it to the next day.
>>   
>> Marcus
>> ----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
>> *Sent:* Wednesday, August 16, 2017 6:56:23 AM
>> *To:* The Friday Morning Applied Complexity Coffee Group
>> *Subject:* Re: [FRIAM] the Skeptical Meme
>>
>> Reading this, I feel like you could found a new generation of something that is like existentialist philosophy but equally-well political theory.
>>
>> It is not so far from Nietzche’s notion that “God is dead” creates a problem for people, and they will face a fork in the road in how they try to deal with it.  Maybe even, considering the currents running through European and particularly German society at the time he was writing (and that he specifically wrote about), driven by concerns based on similar observations.
>>
>> It strikes me that this is an available point of view for almost any person.  Granted, the distribution of rewards and frustrations differs from person to person and also from region to region, and that matters.  But the black box (black hole?) of how minds form characters and orientations in response to streams of these things draws from an immense and to me-obscure range of inputs.
>>
>> Makes me wonder,
>>
>> Eric
>

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